Film

The Film Narrative Project is definitely the largest and most ambitious project I have ever done. Last year as juniors we were tasked to create a silent film that used visual storytelling. This year we got to incorporate dialogue and had ten times more knowledge of filmmaking.

Pitch / Logline

The filmmaking process has many steps that are done behind the scenes to make the movie work. From the beginning there needs to be a good pitch. In our class the pitch days are always fun for me because I love coming up with ideas and I love helping people. The pitches are always given verbally, and notes are taken by a volunteer notetaker, usually Sarah. Here were the notes for my pitch.

Logline: an ordinary man makes friends with his reflection and it ruins his life

A guy lives an average life, 9-5, works in a cubicle, works everyday, has a girlfriend
One day before work the guy is going to the bathroom and as he brushes his teeth he sees his reflection and it’s not brushing its teeth
He tries to get his reflection to mimic him– it doesn’t
He talks to his reflection and they become friends
Says he’s going to work and has a date, but the reflection is skeptical and asks “why?” to responsibilities
He does the tasks, and the reflection says he probably had a crappy day
The reflection convinces him to drop his job and his gf
Guy loses job and reflection, all he has is his reflection
Guy sees he has nothing and is sad, so he gets rid of the reflection, literally throws out the mirror
The mirror is saying “noooo” but the guy throws it away anyway and he gets himself back together
Gets his job back and is gf

I got a lot of feedback on this pitch and was able to create a synopsis.

Synopsis

The synopsis is a run down of the story of the film. It outlines the major events that change characters. Working with three partners here is what we came up with.

Justin M – Stephen H – Ryan J
First Act:
We start in Larry’s apartment. He grabs his wallet and jacket and leaves. He arrives at a restaurant. Larry and Sydney sit at a table eating lunch. Once they finish the waiter comes by with the check. Larry realizes he doesn’t have enough money to cover both their meals so Sydney graciously pitches in some of her money. Larry’s self esteem is lowered, but he leaves cause he has a work meeting soon.We introduce a large building. We hear voices in the background and are led into a small business meeting. Larry is failing to give a pitch. His superiors don’t like the way it sounds. He is losing control as he starts to feel insecure when he catches a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the window. His reflection stares back at him, but it is handsome and has better hair. His reflection is clearly better. It stares back at him and gives him a thumbs up reassuringly. He delivers the rest of his pitch with gusto and his team loves it. He is filled with confidence and ego.

Second Act:
Montage:
He is up for a promotion and celebrates with his superiors.
He brushes his teeth in the morning and smiles at his reflection
Next day he is out to dinner with Sydney and he is wearing his nice suit and sees his reflection in a spoon.
He goes to work in a nice suit and has a good day. Smiling.

Montage ends with Larry going home and Sydney is already at his apartment, chillin’, there to celebrate his possible promotion. Sydney tries to tell him about her morning. He is rambling on and on about how amazing his job is and how awesome he is. Sydney is trying to get his attention, but he is completely preoccupied by his own success and it fades back into Sydney being annoyed that he isn’t listening to her. He still doesn’t listen and denies all complaints. Interrupting her the whole time. He gets a call from his work buddies and they go working. He sees the reflection in the TV of himself encouraging him to go hang out with his buddies. He leaves telling her he will see her that night for dinner.

After work his friends ask if he has any plans. He forgets his dinner with Sydney and they all go out drinking. He gets a text from Sydney saying “WHERE R U?” and ignores it. He comes home late to Sydney sitting on the couch, the dinner cold, and two glasses of wine sitting out, one empty, and one untouched. He walks in and tries to tell her about how much fun he was just having. Sydney pours another glass. He sees his reflection in the wine glass and becomes entranced in it. He is ignoring Sydney and talking to his reflection about how much fun his night was. This sends Sydney over the edge causing her to flip out and throw wine on his nice suit. She storms off leaving him alone with cold food.

He is at work looking sullen and his work friends who are rich assholes show him no sympathy and make fun of him for looking down. He realizes right here and now that he has no one. His work friends don’t care for him, and his girlfriend left the night before. He goes to the bathroom and looks at his reflection and it is his egotistical self surrounded by darkness asking him what he is doing and why he is so sad. He yells at the reflection and asks why it is happy! The reflection starts rambling and he punches the mirror to destroy it. He quits his job. Montage of him changing clothes.

Third act:
He calls Sydney and asks her to Lunch. She begrudgingly shows up and can tell there is a different air about Larry. He isn’t wearing a suit, he is wearing casual clothes. He starts to apologize to her. Muted talking with background noises. In the end they split the check and walk out of the restaurant together hand in hand, and walk to Larry’s apartment.

Man who cares only about his kittens learns of their fate and must learn to love something new
A man who is nonchalant about everything has a cat enter his life. We learn he has a past life he is trying to avoid. Bad people call him asking for a thing of value he thinks he doesn’t have. We show him bonding with the cat and enjoying some company. People show up to his house and as they show up he notices the cat has the thing of value on its collar. The bad people come and knock him out and take the cat. When he comes to, he sees that the cat is missing and he closes his eyes and goes back to sleep.

At the end of the synopsis, I wrote down a very short paragraph about a second idea I had for a Narrative Film. It turns out, that would be the idea I based the actual movie idea on, which you will find out if you keep scrolling 🙂

Screenplay

For the pdfs right click and click “open in new tab”

Don’t mind the poor choice of file name, but the screenplay here is what we printed out and handed to our actors. In the next few files, you will see that the script I used to complete those parts of the Narrative wasn’t the final draft, so that is why you won’t find anything about the Mysterious Girl in my…

Breakdown / Lined Script

In the breakdown and the lining of the script, we are looking through the whole movie and deciding when and where we will need certain locations, props, costumes, actors, and so on. Everything we need to have a working set.

Shot Lists

The shot list is a comprehensive list of every single shot that is going to be shot. It has information such as what kind of camera and lens is being used, and which actors are acting. Ours feels super long, I could only imagine how long they are for longer films.

This shot list has so much information in it! We printed out copies and had them with us on set. When we would finish a take, we would write down which take number was the best one to help with editing.

Stripboards

Stripboards are just another part of the pre-production process that takes time to do, but makes the actual filming process on set way easier. It is an organized schedule of each day, and what scenes you are shooting on that day. It gives a more generalized overview than the shot list, and provides a clearer schedule for the crew.

The app we used for Stripboards, Studiobinder, is also great for other things such as creating call-sheets from a stripboard. A call-sheet is an email with all the information of a shoot. It tells the recipient all of the who/what/when/where/why of the whole situation.

That meant we needed to get actors, a person for sound, and someone to bring us food on set. It was very difficult for us to convince people to be in our movie, but we knew we couldn’t rely on teenagers to play the intense roles we wrote. I called upon my older brother, and my partner called his friends dad, who you might recognize from Pros, an older, but excellent Freestyle Senior Narrative.

Dialogue Scene

So now that we have done all of this planning, we are ready to film… sort of. The film process is always different in practice than it is in theory. The Dialogue Scene was a very good way for me, my partner, and a small group of people to practice the skills of using a shot list and lined script to create a scene based on a screenplay written by Mr. Taylor. We spent a day filming and another two days editing. I am proud to say I love the end result.

The dialogue scene was an incredibly important task for me and my partner to complete before getting onto our own set. We utilized certain skills that are best learned through trial and error such as using a shot list, using a three-camera set-up, and using multi-camera editing in Adobe Premiere to make editing easier.

The Production Process

Now that we have had the necessary training and knowledge of certain, very important, things, we were able to start filming. Because of the Stripboard, we had certain days with some actors and certain days with other actors. Some days we had all of our actors in one scene.

We had to come up with the locations: my house, Stephen’s friend’s dad’s house, and the area in front of Alta Vista High School. My house was usually very easy to film at. My brother was more comfortable being our main character and being bossed around, and we were able to accommodate the dog well.

Now it was time to actually film. Stephen had his $300 gimbal, or a stabilizer, ready to go, and we set to it. Our first few film days went longer than we thought they would go, and we had to make some adjustments to our schedule for the future. But that’s the point of this all is to learn from mistakes and push forward with more information about what not to do, narrowing down our options until we find the correct thing that works right for us.

So we filmed. For about a total of 3 weeks. Here is some raw footage because I love watching raw footage.